Discredit is only possible where its due. Why the **** did Calzaghe not beat Ottke then. How could he sit content and happy while the world rambled about Ottke. Who was the ring champ then ? Ottke !! One thing is the uacceptable fact that a fighter that thinks himself the best, does not yearn and scream for a chance to disprove the others claims. Thats called PRIDE and ambition. My last point with ottke (whom I thouroghly dislike as a boxer) would that he was the moneyman back then. Germany has or had the 2nd largest market in boxing. That would have been a megafight with 80 million germans watching their 2 belt champ fight joe. Denmark has ****ing 5 million people and FW says 70.000 tickets. From common deduction joe&co could not see the money in fighting ottke or he was afraid of losing to ottke. Somehow the logic does not add up as to joes reluctance calling any other beltholders out, most of the guys we are talking about are shitty leftovers from Ottke and some small guy welter/mw guys with dubious rankings, and certainly not mandatory status. Simply not consistent toptier fighter and definately not someone who earned their shots from previous deeds and credentials. I think Joe could have beaten Ottke, but that irrellevant because he chose not to. He was content with little shitty wbo belt and did not show the ambition or courage to be universally recognozed champ, regardless of letter combination. If Kessler beats Joe and decides to leave wba/o/c and their sanctionfees in the gutter then he would still be the recognized champ until beaten. As joe guys always says. It aint the belt but the boxer. Thats true and good words but joe did not care about that until a month ago or so.
I expected it to be a very close fight where Larsen had a fair chance of winning by a very narrow margin. Exactly that happened. And then Ottke was given the belt. Similarly I expect Kessler-Calzaghe to be a hard fought and extremely close fight. If Calzaghe wins in a close fight I think it is 95% certain that he will either retire or say "close or not, I won and that is the end of that. Hopkins are you up for it?" If Kessler wins in a very close fight - yes, then I think a rematch is likely.
To win by very narrow margin on the score cards, would actually mean that he dominated Ottke. I knew this, you knew this - everyone knew that one had to be dominating to beat Ottke on the judges scorecards in Germany - and he failed to dominate Ottke, like he should have. Instead for many rounds he became too passive - got lured into slowing the pace down to where Ottke is comfortable and could keep up. You could very possibly be right concerning Calzaghe's winning statement, and I know that Kessler wouldn't mind a 2nd bout. However I can't see any similarities between fighting Ottke and fighting Calzaghe. JC might be given a little edge due to homeadvantage, just like many danes have prior to Kessler, but nowhere near Ottke. Lets just hope that Kessler will put this fight beyond any doubts.
OK, what I meant was: _____________ I expected it to be a very close fight where Larsen had a fair chance of objectively winning by a very narrow margin. Exactly that happened. I never expected Larsen to dominate Ottke - I think that generally is unrealistic in top top fights....And then Ottke was given the belt. Similarly I expect Kessler-Calzaghe to be a hard fought and extremely close fight. If Calzaghe wins in a close fight I think it is 95% certain that he will either retire or say "close or not, I won and that is the end of that. Hopkins are you up for it?" If Kessler wins in a very close fight - yes, then I think a rematch is likely. ________ "However I can't see any similarities between fighting Ottke and fighting Calzaghe. JC might be given a little edge due to homeadvantage, just like many danes have prior to Kessler, but nowhere near Ottke." Well, if there is no similarity between fighting Ottke and Calzaghe it is imo. because Calzaghe is even better than Ottke and a wide win is obviously even more difficult against Calzaghe. Sure, Joe will probably and hopefully not be as protected as Ottke - but given Joe's higher class, I believe a narrow (objectively speaking) win is what Kessler can hope for. And if Kessler wins a narrow win, I really think he should have that narrow win. And not a loss just because he did not dominate Joe. I really don't think Kessler will dominate Joe in any way shape or form. He will not. No matter what he or his couch says.
Kessler can't win a close fight in cardiff. Out of the question. He needs to win 60-70% to get the belts. Thats the hometown advantage. Goes for Ottke-Larsen too. Its the name of the game, and I am sure Kessler is clearly aware of this. The fact that he started murring about getting too littel dole in copenhagen could indicate that Kessler is pretty confident that he can beat Joe fair and square on joe's hometurf. I am certain about this too. I could mimick Blocky and say styles and "intangiballs" will be the deciding factors. I think we will see a nice clean KO or consecutive kd's ending the fight.
What would be a relevant topic is the outcome of an obviously lousy and biased decision. Hell, would there be hate and screaming on these pages, the day after. Palle says that they have denied Joe a rematch clause in the contract. Thats a good indication of confidence on Kesslers part.
Even if Calzaghe loses he will not drop to Ottke's level. While Ottke did fight slightly better opposition while they were both active, Ottke never had the guts to fight the very best opponent available to him, that of course would be Calzaghe. Calzaghe fought Lacy who at the time was regarded as his biggest threat and he is now fighting Kessler who is even more dangerous. I have been a huge critic of Calzaghe as a lot of his opposition as been quite frankly garbage but he has made fights with the 2 top contenders in recent years which for me puts him on another level to Ottke who was never more than a paper champion.
Unlike I, you seemingly guessed right on how the fight would pan out. Still it doesn't remove the fact that people had been robbed for a win in Germany vs Ottke priorly - why would Larsen be any different. Of course I was disappointed that the judges didn't score the fight right, but I really thought that Mads would show that he was the superior boxer, and that overshadowed my disappointment, that he failed. Of course I agree that a win should be a win. Where would boxing be, if all of it turned into politics and economy, and I do expect that if Kessler deserves the narrow win, he should be granted it. My whole argument started and pretty much ended with Ottke. In the matches you mentioned, things were different. I thought Wright beat Taylor, and even if he wasn't dominating the fight, thought it was a gift decision. Maybe Taylor will be put where Ottke was; a WC that was handed gift decisions in key-fights, and hence in the future a challenger would take that into account, when fighting him - just like any boxer should have done the same vs Ottke. You can't running around and hope for justice, when you don't receive any, when the judges can get away with gift decisions on a narrow basis. Same goes if you are legitemately behind on scoring cards - you have to become dominating to regain the points. Until proven otherwise, I think a narrow win(objectively) would suffice for Kessler - maybe we will become wiser.